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Cardiovascular disease as a whole still the most common cause of death

The Heart Foundation says while cancer may have overtaken heart disease as Australia’s biggest killer, when cardiovascular disease is looked at as a whole, it adds up to be the most common cause of death.

Heart Foundation national director Dr Rob Grenfell says cardiovascular disease, which includes strokes as well as heart and vascular diseases, killed 45,622 people in 2011.

It was closely followed by cancer, which claimed the lives of 43,721 Australians.

Heart disease alone killed 21,500.

Dr Grenfell says cancer and cardiovascular disease have common risk factors such as smoking, obesity and inactivity and could be tackled together.

"As a group of diseases, cancers and cardiovascular diseases are attributable to 60 per cent of the country's deaths and both are largely preventable," he said.

"If we were to have a coordinated approach to the management of these risk factors we would reduce the prevalence of preventable deaths."